Monday, June 27, 2011

My very first travel adventure

My father left Germany in 1925 for America and later sent for my mother. Germany was going through a real crisis after World War I. To pay off their war debts they just started printing money which caused extreme inflation (Washington, are you listening ?). My mother and dad were paid every day because the next day the money would be worth half. A wheelbarrow full of money would buy a loaf of bread. The situation grew intolerable, so they left for a new future in America. My dad sold fruit on the train while traveling to Detroit where he would look for work. Once there, he followed the streetcar that took workers to a automotive plant where he applied for a job as a tool and die maker, many of the workers there were also from Germany. In 1935, when I was seven years old, my mother decided to take me on a trip to Germany. It was a strange trip to say the least, Hitler was in power and the usual greeting at the stores or bank was "Heil Hitler!". We went over on the ship Breman, which was later converted into a troopship that was sunk near Norway during World War II.

Everyone did not like that sailor suit, I had the crap beat out of me. A few years later, back in the States, the same thing happened to me during the war, the kids called me a Nazi.